1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a light polarization analyzer usable for a fluorescence depolarization method or the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a method for measuring the viscosity of a liquid, or as a bioanalysis technique, a fluorescence depolarization method is employed. With the fluorescence depolarization method, a parallel component III and a perpendicular component I⊥ with respect to the excitation light polarization direction of excitation light are each measured, so as to detect a fluorescence polarization degree P as represented by P=(III−I⊥)/(III+I⊥). By employing such a fluorescence depolarization method, such an arrangement allows an immune assay method, which ordinarily requires multiple steps, to be performed as a single-step operation.
However, with such a fluorescence depolarization method, the fluorescence polarization degree P is detected by means of calculation after measurement of a pair of light components, i.e., III and I⊥ having polarization directions that are perpendicular to each other, which is troublesome. Thus, there is almost no known arrangement that provides multi-sampling measurement. In a case of measuring multiple points at the same time, such an arrangement is required to repeatedly perform single-point measurement with respect to the focal point while scanning the focal point. Such an arrangement requires a long measurement time, a large-size apparatus, and high costs, which are problems.